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On another note, I got Ubuntu all re-installed and all my files migrated back but everything was the same with the mouse issues. So, I guess I just did a fresh install for nothing. Well, at least I cleared out some junk along the way. I guess that is a good thing.

One other thing I tried is I completely uninstalled Compiz which comes installed by default in Ubuntu. I got the idea that it may have been causing the issues but alas, the problems persist. I guess there is an up side to that too though. I didn't really need Compiz. I don't need all those whiz-bang effects and it just takes up extra room on the drive.

One thing I have noticed though is that it seems like the issues have slowed some. Before I was REALLY noticing the issues and now I notice them somewhat less. Now, I don't know if something got "sorta" fixed along the way or maybe I'm just getting used to compensating for the problems but, that is something I'm definitely noticing. Or maybe I'm just going crazy over all this. That could be it too...

Anyway, I'll try the mouse on another computer today like you are suggesting and get back to you on it.

In the mean time, if anyone has any other ideas/more info/etc please let me know. I really want to get this resolved!

Are you using a laptop?

I was having the exact problems you describe and... discovered it was my thumbs getting too close to the touchpad (below the spacebar) on my laptop and creating random, spurious mouse activity (moves, clicks, mouse-down, etc.).

It was REALLY frustrating - until I (finally!!) figured it out and disabled the touchpad. If you're using a laptop with a touchpad, hit Alt-F2 to bring up the run dialog and run synclient TouchpadOff=1.

Hopefully that helps!

Notes:

Change the 1 to a 0 (zero) to re-enable the Touchpad.

The above is what I do on my Kubuntu 8.10 laptop. The run dialog hot-key may be different for Gnome. I've no idea, I'm a "KDE guy".

You can also open a terminal window and run it from there if you want. (But if you don't have a working mouse, knowing the run dialog hotkey is very, very handy.

You can run the above at any time as a normal user - no sudo required.

To make things even easier, I created a little script called /usr/local/bin/touchpad with the following:

I too am on a desktop. But, thanks anyway for the idea Limos. Maybe someone else will find that as a solution.

As a side note, I'm not noticing this issue right now. In fact, I haven't really noticed it at all today that I can recall. But, I'm not going to hold my breath because it'll probably start up again right after I submit this.

Yeah! I've never really thought of Linux ever being a desktop until Ubuntu came out. But even with Ubuntu it's still far too complicated to do simple things. Almost every article you can find about doing something in Ubuntu involves some sort of command line stuff. Yikes!

I also don't like how it doesn't support very much software. I can't live without my Photoshop and the latest version that's even close to decent in WINE is CS2. But, I guess that's not their fault. Somebody should start a petition to get Adobe to release Linux versions of their software. I think that would be a HUGE step in the right direction for making Ubuntu more mainstream.

Another thing that grips me is theming in Ubuntu. I've been on Ubuntu for a few months and I've yet to find even a decent theme for Ubuntu. Most of them I can find make me want to throw up (seriously!). The default Ubuntu themes are no exception. I mean, I've been continually going back to the default theme but that's just because I can't find a better one and at least the default theme is somewhat usable.

I think what they need to do is hire a real good interface designer to give it a professional overhaul. It would probably cost a pretty penny but it would definitely be worth it! They could probably dramatically increase their market share just by getting a better default theme.

Yeah! I've never really thought of Linux ever being a desktop until Ubuntu came out. But even with Ubuntu it's still far too complicated to do simple things. Almost every article you can find about doing something in Ubuntu involves some sort of command line stuff. Yikes!

I also don't like how it doesn't support very much software. I can't live without my Photoshop and the latest version that's even close to decent in WINE is CS2. But, I guess that's not their fault. Somebody should start a petition to get Adobe to release Linux versions of their software. I think that would be a HUGE step in the right direction for making Ubuntu more mainstream.

Another thing that grips me is theming in Ubuntu. I've been on Ubuntu for a few months and I've yet to find even a decent theme for Ubuntu. Most of them I can find make me want to throw up (seriously!). The default Ubuntu themes are no exception. I mean, I've been continually going back to the default theme but that's just because I can't find a better one and at least the default theme is somewhat usable.

I think what they need to do is hire a real good interface designer to give it a professional overhaul. It would probably cost a pretty penny but it would definitely be worth it! They could probably dramatically increase their market share just by getting a better default theme.

Hey, the theme get's better from year to year, Hoary, one of the earlier releases looked like mud.

Anyway, have you any idea what you want for a theme? If you know what you want and could draw it out you could make it yourself, it's not an impossibly complex procedure.

And there are petitions for adobe to consider linux, they tend to fall on deaf ears.

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Hey, the theme get's better from year to year, Hoary, one of the earlier releases looked like mud.

Yeah, they have been getting better. I can't argue with that. I kind of like the new darker theme they included in the latest version of Ubuntu. But, it still leaves something to be desired.

Originally Posted by scragar

Anyway, have you any idea what you want for a theme? If you know what you want and could draw it out you could make it yourself, it's not an impossibly complex procedure.

I've actually been trying to figure out how to make themes. However I haven't really been able to find a decent tutorial on the subject. The one that most people point you to leaves some things out and is overall, well, lacking to say the least...

Originally Posted by scragar

And there are petitions for adobe to consider linux, they tend to fall on deaf ears.

But even with Ubuntu it's still far too complicated to do simple things. Almost every article you can find about doing something in Ubuntu involves some sort of command line stuff. Yikes!

Wow, I'm not sure what articles you are reading. They may be mentioning installing software, but you can always use the Synaptic Package Manager. I almost never use the command line and I use Ubuntu for 98% of all the work I do. It's very easy to use. If I do need to use the command line, it's no different than using the one in Windoze.

Originally Posted by Jick

I also don't like how it doesn't support very much software. I can't live without my Photoshop and the latest version that's even close to decent in WINE is CS2. But, I guess that's not their fault. Somebody should start a petition to get Adobe to release Linux versions of their software. I think that would be a HUGE step in the right direction for making Ubuntu more mainstream.

First of all, "it doesn't support very much software" is not a correct statement. I believe that you mean Windoze software, because there are tens of thousands of software programs for Linux.

Photoshop is supported using Wine. I know several people who use it for professional purposes and don't really have any problems. It just sometimes takes a bit of tweaking. Also, I have read many people state that once that made the switch to Gimp, it was just as easy, if not more, than Photoshop.

I have to say that I did have to make a few adjustments when i switched to Ubuntu but it has MORE than made up for all the problems with Windoze and its related viruses, etc. I set-up my wife's new laptop with Ubuntu and she can't really tell the difference, she is not not that great with computers to begin with.

There must be something to Ubuntu as many governments are switching part or all of their computers to Ubuntu (the US - part; Japan-all; EU - all, China - all etc.), many large school systems are switching as they can no longer afford the Windoze licensing scheme, as are many large, medium, and small corporations. Oh well, sometimes old habits die hard. Do you remember the learning process you went through when you first started using DOS/Windoze?

Do you remember the learning process you went through when you first started using DOS/Windoze?

I know I did:

win 3.1
my first windows, it was easy enough to work out, although I had a hard time following the file structure when I wanted to run a program that wasn't in the applications dir(which for some reason included paint and notepad, yeah, go figure on that one).
DOS:
for gaming, accessibility curve to be feared, cd to change directory, but c would return you to the root directory, c:\file.exewould run file.exe, but cd c:\folder wouldn't cd to the folder. Confusing.

XP:
I managed to get my head around XP easy enough, lot's of options are hidden though, and those that aren't hidden are not exactly made easy to use(anyone volunteering to guide someone through the process of partitioning a USB device on windows? Anyone? Didn't think so), sure, most things have a GUI, but it's far from intuitive.

Linux(GUI):
My first go at using linux was an Ubuntu 6.06 live CD, I fell in love immediately, applications on the bottom, menu's and buttons on top, the resolution was 1024, I didn't even need to search out and graphics drivers, fantastic. I played around for a while, loving every minute of it, I couldn't get sound working, but over all almost everything was working fantastic without any effort(where windows needed me to configure my internet, intall an antivirus and spybot, install drivers etc).

Linux(CLI):
wow, I was confused when I first tried using the command line, I tried all the usual dos commands, nothing made much sense, so I tried something that windows couldn't get right, help wow, a list of inbuilt commands, great, I played around for a while, easy enough, some of them didn't appear to do anything, but I was confident I would figure them out, when I ran across the man command, great, so help gives me inbuilt commands, including man, which gives me man pages on other commands, not bad to say I was guessing at random stuff to begin with.

Now, I've been using linux for over a year, loving every moment of it, I've tried 4 different distro's on my main box(ubuntu(first), debian(second, was faster, but it wasn't stable for some reason), knoppix(third, and I would still be using it if a powercut while I was recompiling my kernel hadn't left me with a somewhat unbootable system(there's a warning for ya, never recompile the new kernel over the old one, there's a reason make complains about it, adding the force option does not make everything better)) and gentoo(which just took too long to install, I got it installed, came to install a few more programs, realised how long it would take, and gave up on it)).

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Wow, I'm not sure what articles you are reading. They may be mentioning installing software, but you can always use the Synaptic Package Manager. I almost never use the command line and I use Ubuntu for 98% of all the work I do. It's very easy to use. If I do need to use the command line, it's no different than using the one in Windoze.

Yeah, but I never used the command line in Windows. Except for on very rare occasions.

Originally Posted by LeeU

First of all, "it doesn't support very much software" is not a correct statement. I believe that you mean Windoze software, because there are tens of thousands of software programs for Linux.

What I meant was it doesn't support lots of the mainstream software that lots of people have come to reply upon. But like I said, that isn't Ubuntu's fault. More of just a personal gripe/wish.

Originally Posted by LeeU

Photoshop is supported using Wine. I know several people who use it for professional purposes and don't really have any problems. It just sometimes takes a bit of tweaking. Also, I have read many people state that once that made the switch to Gimp, it was just as easy, if not more, than Photoshop.

Yeah. I just wish they reliably supported the newest version of Photoshop. But, I guess it is kind of hard to keep up with Adobe. They keep releasing new versions and the WINE crew has to keep up with all of them at the same time pretty much.

Originally Posted by LeeU

I have to say that I did have to make a few adjustments when i switched to Ubuntu but it has MORE than made up for all the problems with Windoze and its related viruses, etc. I set-up my wife's new laptop with Ubuntu and she can't really tell the difference, she is not not that great with computers to begin with.

There must be something to Ubuntu as many governments are switching part or all of their computers to Ubuntu (the US - part; Japan-all; EU - all, China - all etc.), many large school systems are switching as they can no longer afford the Windoze licensing scheme, as are many large, medium, and small corporations. Oh well, sometimes old habits die hard. Do you remember the learning process you went through when you first started using DOS/Windoze?

I completely agree! I wasn't trying to diss on Ubuntu. I think it's wonderful! All it does and it's 100% free and anyone can contribute to it! Just awesome! Can't say that for Windows...

@Jick: Ah, it's just me, then. As a writer, I tend to see things more specific. I realize now that you were being more general. Gotcha! Yeah, I have a program, NoteTab Pro, that there are a few minor glitches I have to over look, using Wine.

@scragar: I remember when Windows 1.0 first came out. (But I'm not old ;-> ) I was wondering why the salesman (who I knew) was so insistent that I try it. Then, once I got it loaded I found out. It was sooooooooooooooo slow. I dropped it and went back to my old DOS menus. That was back when Windows wasn't the operating systems, DOS still was. Windows was only a navigational system,. for the most part. It was competing with Apple.